Simply put, marketing research is all about helping a business get a better understanding of its target market. This information is used by businesses for making their products better, improving user experience, and coming up with a marketing strategy leading to better quality leads and improvement in conversion rates. Market research results are often summarised in a report which carries actionable insights to allow companies to make better-informed decisions about their operations, strategies, and potential customer base.
A business has a lot of choices but limited resources and they need a better understanding of the changing consumer preferences and needs, legislative trends, and broader industry shifts to decide where to focus their resources. This is what market research brings to the table.
Take the example of the retail clothing industry. If you run a retail clothing store and you come to learn that a new kind of fabric has just been created by scientists where the wearer has the potential to lose weight when they put on clothes made of that fiber, your store might want to test out a few designs. If a marketing research tool tells you that shoppers in the vicinity of your stores base their purchase decision on the availability of coupons, you might want to test out the use of coupons in that region. There is a huge growth of popularity in market research recruitment in London.
Advantages of Using Market Research for a Business
Proper market research provides valuable insights into the minds of potential customers, their likes and their dislikes. These insights are available in both qualitative and quantitative terms and can help in making businesses better-informed decisions.
An important role is played by marketers when it comes to collecting and interpreting data. In most companies, the marketing department alone or combined with the sales department keeps track of the customer base. Marketers are in the best position to reach out to the people required for performing credible market research.
In general, the marketing department also has the necessary skills for making sense of the collected data. Companies of all sizes typically have a trained analyst or researcher that provides help with the preparation of marketing research and allows things to remain rational and not reactionary.
Market Research Types
A variety of tools are available for market research but market research data can be categorised into only 2 types:
Primary data— It is the data you collect on your own or take the help of a market research agency. Since it is first-hand information, you are in complete control of the data.
Secondary data— It’s the data that already exists – data you will find in industry reports, government reports, newspapers, and magazines. This data can be analysed in a variety of ways but this data is already accessible to almost everyone.
Two types of research studies can be conducted based on either primary or secondary data:
Exploratory research studies— This type of market research involves the collection of a huge amount of open-ended data from a wide range of people to better understand an opportunity or a problem. The goal of these studies is to get a collection of opinions and perceptions about an issue to allow your business to come up with a solution. Before that can happen, you need a basic understanding of how the target market sees the issue.
Specific research studies— Once you are aware of the broader market opportunities or issues, specific questions may be used for collecting information and that information may guide you to a completely new service or product. Specific questions are often used by market research agencies to collect feedback on a completely new advertising campaign, or for refining the parameters of a planned product.
Final Thoughts
You can’t ignore market research when developing a marketing strategy. Properly done market research has the potential to provide a lot of actionable insights specific to your business and at a much broader level. Marketing research can be used to figure out how your business is seen by existing and potential customers and if there are any identified gaps in customer expectations. This information can be used to further refine your marketing strategy. Having access to good quality actionable market intelligence keeps the risks to a minimum and allows you to make better-informed business decisions.